I started cleaning up a handful of fountain pens languishing by the spare sink on Monday. Most of them seem to be fine, but I did find a lot of dried-out ink in the Namiki Bamboo, and some ink residue in the converters of the Waterman Phileas and Parker Vector. The Bamboo is still soaking, but the Phileas and Vector got filled with some Mont Blanc 'green', which seemed likely to be the safest and most detergent-rich ink available to me. I have discovered a couple things:

1. The Namiki push-button converter holds a lot of ink, but is still an enormous pain to clean out.
2. Mont Blanc's blue-black ink stains surprisingly well. Better than anything else I have, actually.
3. Based on (1) and (2), using Mont Blanc blue-black in the Namiki Bamboo is contraindicated, and any pen filled with the ink should be flushed out as soon as it is empty.
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On Overpriced Shaving Doodads

2009.08.11 18:37 - Meatspace Stupidity, Toys, Gadgets

A few years back, I purchased a Merkur Vision safety razor, and a Merkur Hefty Classic. The former retails around $200, the latter around $40. If you're in the market for such a thing, buy the Hefty Classic. It doesn't feel as satisfying and has no adjustments to fiddle with, but it works as well or better, costs only a fifth as much, and doesn't have to be maintained like a British automobile.

In related news, I just got my Vision back together after the handle seized over a year ago. Had to damage the finish, though. Twice.
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I don't yet know where the mic stacks up, but the cans sound lovely, the headband and earcups and comfy, and the cabling seems very nice.

The downside is that the QC seems a bit lacking, because one of the two mic jacks on the headset is kaput!

Long and short: I don't think I can recommend these in good conscience. Assuming they're not fragile, they really are superb, but I would hate for somebody to spend $200 on a headset to have the microphone not work at all.
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